speech, republican presidential candidate mitt romney had this to say about the obama administrati administration's work in the middle east. take a listen. >> but it is our responsibility and the responsibility of the president to use america's greatest power to shape history, not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events. unfortunately, that's exactly where we find ourselves in the middle east under president obama. >> but a fellow republican, senator rand paul, tells cnn that romney's approach is wrong, that more u.s. intervention in the mideast would not be effective, that our wars have fared poorly. in your opinion, what is the role of the u.s. in this region? >> first of all, we have to determine, is this region important to us? and the answer definitely is yes. because of our allies in the region from nato ally turkey which is under fire right now from syria to israel that's constantly being threatened to our gulf allies. secondly, energy. thirdly, this is the transportation and geographic hub of eurasia. fourthly, it's the cradle of civilizations in religions, it's part

. >> reporter: for his part, romney could try again to bash the president for his administrati administration's messy response to the attack in libya last month and link it to what he says is a failed approach to the region. >> this calls into question the president's whole policy in the middle east. look at what's happening in syria, egypt, now in libya. tl president said he was going to put daylight between us and israel. >> reporter: both candidates face a challenge monday night. >> the challenge for president obama is going to be defining the middle east strategy going forward. i mean he's had some successes, had some things that are still pretty murky. >> reporter: romney's task could be bigger. >> i think for romney there's a broad challenge and that is how do you drill down into specific policies. the republican party hasn't really figured out what a republican foreign policy looks like after the bush administration. i think romney's been uneager to really delve in that. >> with mitt romney, every second you're talking about foreign policy is wasted, which might mean that romney breaks o

there are a number of years after 2014 that the adm administrati administration's own policy allows forame thing. congressman ryan believes that 2014 should be the transition, and they think the flexible the president built in is appropriate. but the goal, handing off security to the afghan forces on that very important issue there, is no difference between the president and governor romney. >> stylistic points of debate, we heard vice president biden interrupting congressman ryan. calling him in friend. did you prepare for that? >> i watched a lot of biden debate tape over the years. i never seen him perform quite like he did tonight. i'll leave it to others to judge whether it was appropriate for the office of vice president. the contrast was striking on substance, where congressman ryan, laid out a plan, governor romney wanted to pursue the next four years. laid out what has happened over the last four years, the president and vice president tonight couldn't articulate what happened, no really explanation. no rationale for the next four years, so on content, a real choice between rya

and i think that the republican administrati administration, if it came in, would want to go more to a free market kind of solution without any g.s.e.'s. i would hope that the suggestion i made and the mortgage bankers association made and jim milstein made, would be seen as something that both sides could live with in that it is largely a private capital solution, there isn't a freddie mac or fannie mae or hybrid. in is a -- there are five private companies competing who have the ability to pay a premium in order to get a government guarantee of their und underlying securities. i would hope that would seem enough of a free market solution that the republicans would be ok with it and enough of a protection of the housing market that the democratic folks might find it acceptable. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> through election day we will have come of candidates and key debat debates. up next "washington journal" live with your calls, tweets and e-mails. followed by a look at poverty and rol

for the next week, the administrati administration's line was this with his not a terror attack, hadolicy. it was not a terrorist attack. that was the theme and narrative that they wanted to put out there. and it was wrong. why were they doing it? i think it's because it undercut the president's campaign promise or claim that al qaeda had been decimated. and whether they provided enough security to that consulate. i don't really blame them for not having enough security. it's a mistake or judgment call that was wrong. what makes it worse is the day after they should have said it looks as if there was not enough security. we're going to review all of our security at consulates across the world. they ignored al qaeda all together and tried to blame it all on this ridiculous video. >> you're not saying a cover up then? what mr. giuliani said yesterday was a cover up, which seems to imply some kind of criminal activity. your saying it is a big, complete screw up. i know you wanted to jump in. >> let me just -- no, i am saying -- we can define cover up however you want. the administration

. >> reporter: but romney notes the president has fallen short of estimates set by the administrati administration's own economic advisors once predicted the stimulus would lower the jobless rate to below 6%. >> what's happened is this has been the slowest recovery since the great depression. as a matter of fact, he said right now we would be at 5.4% unemployment. >> president obama says he's creating jobs, but he's really creating debt. >> reporter: and romney has a new ad out arguing the president's job creation efforts have only added to the deficit. >> a couple nights ago we had a debate. you may have got the chance to see that. >> reporter: before the new jobs numbers, romney had been riding a wave of momentum after this week's debate. he even got a pass from the president who never mentioned romney's comments on the 47% of americans who don't pay federal income taxes. >> there are 47% of the people who vote for the president no matter what. >> reporter: with an obama campaign ad still repeating those, romney tried to put an end to the controversy once and for all on fox. >> clearly in a campai

dependent upon the other, how does the governor intend to, within the time, space of a single administrati administration, make such a substantial and drastic change in government spending? >> so, i think this is a place where facts really do matter. and you know just remind people, the base budget for this year is about $525 billion, which is up 34% since 2001. the notion that some of this budget, even compare the base budgets of fy '13 to 2007 under george h. w. bush, under his last budget it's gone up considerably. and defense will continue to go up under this administration. and it's projected to go up in fy 20. the question is controlling the rate of growth and that's where the congress, congressman ryan, speaker boehner, bipartisan group all decided that they should be cuts to the growth. you know, just against some of the facts. you know, talk about naval assets. our navy is bigger than the next 13 navies combined. and that's why but fy 20 we will have 300 ships. that's the projection. i can, their plan is in search of a strategy. 60% of those assets are going to be deployed to the pacific by 2020

. >> if you look at the electronic medical records that they have in the veterans administrati administration -- >> right. much smaller, it's hard to do that with -- it's hard to do it with 300 million. >> -- they permit a much greater use of that information to assess treatments and improve treatments than in other parts. but, look, you are absolutely right, and it is a great -- it is a besetting danger that -- we decide that we're just going to squash down on anybody who provides anything -- >> right. >> -- we would do great damage to innovation. but i don't see any evidence that that's what we're doing. i think we're recognizing that the right kinds of investments, some of it is, as you say, pharmaceuticals. some of it is public health measures, getting people to eat and exercise and -- >> right. >> -- in better ways. some of it is better, earlier detection and prevention. if we make the right kinds of investments, that can contribute to lower costs. also by keeping people healthier longer, helping people work longer, that can make an important contribution to addressing -- to addressing e

days til election day, the obama administrati too busy to deal with the duties of running th government? we'll show you some of the outrageous shortcuts that the administrationas taken in tonight's chalk talk. governoromney lets loose with a sparkling stand-up routine for a very good cause. some of his best one-liners straight ahead. >> of course, we're down to the final months of the president's term -- [laughter] as president obama surveys the waldorf banquet room with everyone in white tie and can finery, you have to wonder what he's thinking. so little time, so much to redistribute. [lghter] everyone in the nicu, all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days. everything that you thought was important to you changes in light of having a child that needs you every moment. i wouldn't trade him for the world. who matters most to you says the most about you. massmutual is owned by our policyholders so they matter most to . if you're caring for a child with special needs, our innovative special care program offers strategies that can help. so, which supeas lte service would yochse, based on this chart ? don't rush into it, i'm not looking for t

have been a major cover-up by the administration of what really happened, more and more seems to come out every day indicating not only was it bungled, but the administrati knew almost immediately that terrorism was implicated and proceeded to go forward and say otherwise. >> bill: it's almost staggeringly stupid to think that they could get away with it, even if they did it, i can't imagine it. it's so dumb. buthe problem here is foreign policy is a complicated matter. you and i and senator mccain, we follow this thing. we do it for a living. but the press doesn't report much on this. local news doesn't report on it at all on tv. local tv news, you don't get it at all. talk radio, very little. very little. all right? so how the voters supposed to understand what's going on over there, if they're not getting any information about it? >> certainly it's fair to say that if this were a republican president -- >> bill: they'd be wild! they'd be going crazy! >> this would be a huge to do about it, not only the intelligence and security failure, but the sent kept of a cover-up. that would be picked upper more aggress investly. it has fallen to fox ne and other